Dog Boy (11 page)

Grey Brother bounded along, joyous, and with the unmistakeable air of transgression. He led Romochka across the allotment with a spring in his step, his limp barely perceptible. Romochka thought Grey Brother was excited that it was, for the first time, just the two of them. He scampered too as he wondered what possibilities a hunt with his surviving brother would bring. Grey Brother was strong and a good hunter, although not as fast as he had been, and Grey Brother still enjoyed the forbidden more than the sanctioned. He liked to start fights with other clan dogs by flouting their boundaries, and he liked to sneak off by himself. He had been known to go out hunting with Black Sister, only for the two to return singly from different parts of the territory. Once he disappeared for more than a day and came home with nothing, the smells of strange dogs all about him.

Grey Brother marked the last meeting post and stood, quivering. He looked towards the mountain and hesitated. Romochka was about to lead off, but Grey Brother suddenly made up his mind and sprang off in the other direction. Romochka ran after him, yipping in delight. He had never gone this way.

Grey Brother was redolent with the smell of mischief and had a lot to show him. They roamed through the grassy verges by the highrises, along roadsides dodging traffic and joggers, past shops and kiosks. Romochka’s spirits soared with the adventure of it. Then they came to the metro entrance. Around the squat glass building with its ever-swinging doors, Romochka saw faces he knew, people sleeping on small squares of lawn with their dogs or begging at the metro doors. He noticed that they recognised him too. And Grey Brother.

His high spirits slowly subsided. Grey Brother knew this place too well. He moved in a practised way from meeting point to meeting point. This was where the paper bags of half-eaten pirozhki came from. This was where they found whole loaves of bread. Cake.

His brows drew together. They had all duped him. They had all hunted in the city. All except Romochka.

Grey Brother noticed Romachka’s changed mood and struggled to find something naughty enough to cheer him up. He tried scaring an old man but Romochka only slouched after him, deep in thought. They chased a cat half-heartedly, but soon gave up and trailed back to the allotment. Romochka didn’t mark the post. He felt the treachery of his family keenly. He couldn’t smell the city on them, and so they had hidden it from him. The dogs, who never lied to each other, had lied to him, all of them. Everyone, even the people of the mountain, went there day in, day out.

Grey Brother licked his hand with uncommon tenderness as they walked slowly back across the allotment. He didn’t dart off to do something of his own, and Romochka was touched. Grey Brother didn’t usually hang around being kind hearted.

Back in the lair he sat down away from the others and scowled at them. Mamochka didn’t trust him and didn’t expect him to hunt properly. From this day on, he told himself, I will be hunting in the city. He glowered at them—Mamochka lying on the nest oblivious to his resolve; Golden Bitch staring at him with furrowed brow from the sentry point. You can’t stop me, he thought to himself. I’ll show you all.

Romochka, White Sister and Grey Brother headed home with a jaunty air. He carried their catch in a large doubled plastic bag slung over his shoulder. Now and then they had to stop while he flopped it onto the ground to have a rest. He sighed with exaggerated contentment and pride as White Sister and Grey Brother sniffed it passionately, wagging their tails. They reached the last meeting place by the fence and he swung the bag around in a flourish to leave a message for the others. He peed on the last post, too, for the first time since Grey Brother had taken him to the city. He, Romochka, had brought something home, and it was extra special! He let Grey Brother lick his fingers as they made their way across the meadow grass of the allotment.

Everyone would know that he hunted, and hunted well. Every stranger visiting their meeting place would know that
he
was part of the family. Each breath filled him with a sweet happiness the closer he got to home and the further he got from the city and people. He began to smile delightedly to himself. It had been chancy, but in the end so skilful. He was bursting with it now, if underneath still a little shocked at what he had done. His ear still burned.

Romochka, White Sister and Grey Brother had sniffed trails in the maze of lanes around the shops, apartment blocks and metro station for a couple of hours, finding nothing much. They missed the one cat they chased; it ran at Romochka to escape, and he misjudged his dive.

He could tell from the way White Sister and Grey Brother lifted their noses that the woman lumbering up the footpath towards them was carrying something good. He felt dizzy for a second with the strength of his inspiration. He didn’t think. He gripped his club, stepped out in front of her and swung it hard at her knees. The dogs held to the shadows, disoriented, not understanding his intention.

He missed. The woman stepped back, dropped her bags and cuffed him across the side of the head, sending him sprawling.

‘Filth! Bomzh! Animal!’ she shrieked, stepping up to kick him, but she got no further. The two dogs were on her. White Sister stood over Romochka, black eyes blazing, snarling and leaping to snap at the woman’s face. Grey Brother circled her and began darting in and out from behind for nips. She swung, yelling in pain, to face him. Romochka grabbed the two shopping bags and ran, wrestling them along the road, around the corner and into an empty cardboard box next to a dumpster in the alley. He shut the box and sat crouched inside, listening. He was shaking all over. The woman screamed and screamed, but he could tell that White Sister and Grey Brother were no longer with her: the screams were very regular. His heart stopped pounding, although his head still throbbed.

He felt and sniffed through the bags. Chickens! Two! No feathers. Cheese! A big half round. Sausages! Celery, carrots, onions. Cucumbers. A liver! What was this big thing? He sniffed it, his nose still stupefied from the liver. A cabbage! There was a commotion of people now around the corner, and he could hear the woman still yelling and screaming. He waited, his hands feeling over the food until there was calm. White Sister and Grey Brother wouldn’t be far. He knew they would find him. He would need them, to stop some big kid or dog thieving his haul.

Then he started to feel bad. It crept up on him. He saw himself again and again swinging his club at the woman.
Filth! Bomzh! Animal!
His first mother would have been angry.

‘Filth. Bomzh. Animal.’ He said the words over and over to himself, his own rusty little-kid voice scaring him in the darkness of the box. Something dissolved suddenly, some huge barrier between him and people. They had been in the untouchable fringe of his world; dangerous, like dogs with frothy mouths, yet irrelevant like those sick dogs, too. He started to cry softly to himself.

He heard the dogs outside tracking him, then Grey Brother’s nose pushed through the flaps of the box. Romochka giggled in relief and madly licked that big head. He wiped his face and nose on furry shoulders. He backed out and pulled the bags out after him. He let them sniff the liver on his fingers and the chickens in the bag. They bounded around in delight and triumph, which cheered him up immensely. He loaded everything into one bag, put it inside the other, and off they set.

 

After that, Romochka and the three young dogs preyed on people. They kept as far from their own part of the city as they felt they could safely go, and with this their open path territory expanded considerably. They got a system going and Romochka no longer had to front up first. It was heart-racingly exciting. He would pick a likely victim, someone with shopping bags in a deserted alley, and saunter past them, or behind them, gleeful that there was no way they could recognise that he was a hunting dog. Then, when he judged the moment, he yipped. White Sister, Grey Brother and Black Sister would appear silently out of the darkness and hold the person at bay. Romochka would run hunched into the melée, take the bags and leave the three to keep the furious and frightened victim against the wall until he was safely away. Then the dogs would melt into the darkness again.

Romochka didn’t let them do it too often and never in the same place twice. People would not put up with that, he told himself, if it happened too often. But it was his pride and joy. It was his special hunt with the three. He began to watch people the way he would watch birds to see where their nests were.

He became aware that the dogs each had a different view of people. Grey Brother would beg now and then, from a safe distance. Golden Bitch and Black Dog at times chased kids for the fun of it, and Romochka and the three joined in. When they were all together they could scare even adults, especially the diseased or drunken ones. These reminded Romochka faintly of his uncle, and he whooped as he saw them run from the hunting pack.

Mamochka avoided humans and had trained Romochka and the three to fear them. Yet, in time, he noticed that for all her wariness Mamochka was also the most attached to humans. Unlike the others, she knew the human word ‘dog’. He realised he had never seen her deliberately frighten people, and she would only snarl at them to defend him, Romochka, or (he guessed) one of her puppies. He saw that she had a basic respect and affection that extended to all humans they met, and he was chastened.

Perhaps there were other ways to get food from humans.

People were relatively kindly towards dogs, he discovered. He made White Sister and Grey Brother sit beside him on the street and hummed meanly at them if they snarled or growled, or even lifted a lip at anyone. They both sat, looking crestfallen—ears down, eyes sliding this way and that in discomfort, but quiet enough. He stood outside the Teramok cabin by the metro station with a plastic bag and accosted everyone who entered. He tried his croaky little voice on the long-rehearsed phrase: ‘Please, give. Beautiful dogs, hungry.’

People looked at him and the dogs and laughed. They
were
beautiful dogs: one white; one gold and grey.

‘What do you want from me, kid?’

‘Food, please, for the starving dogs. When you finish.’

Many did come out and drop their leftovers into his bag. Even the Teramok workers did on occasion. He was all the more successful because he shook his head when they offered him money. Some people gave him coins anyway, and he accumulated a small cache among his treasures in the corner of the lair.

Things only got out of control if anyone tried to pat the dogs. White Sister and Grey Brother immediately lost their grip on the parts they were playing and snapped furiously, then tried to run away. He took to standing well in front of them, so that he could intercept such hands himself, and say, nodding seriously: ‘They are hungry. They bite. Hard.’

When he called the collection to a close, the three of them would scamper off, he with a spring in his step, they with tails waving gaily. Out of sight they would all check the catch, and he would kiss and make a big fuss of the brave dogs.

This kind of hunting was less fun but he felt good about it. He would come home with a heavy bag and everyone would eat well. He was sure Mamochka would approve. He watched other beggars and rehearsed their phrases.
For the love of Christ, give!
Professional beggars didn’t mind him. Some even nodded to him as he passed by. Word soon spread in their city-wide network that the crazy dogboy was harmless and never took money, and so the beggarmasters left him alone.

As Romochka’s confidence in his urban hunting grew, so did his ability in live hunts. He worked better with his siblings, and they learned quickly to cover his weaknesses and trust his strengths. He was a finer strategist than any of them, and they brought home good food regularly under his guidance. They began to look to him for direction, and to pay attention to his plans.

It was a daytime hunt in the city. Romochka and Grey Brother trapped the large ginger tom in a cul-de-sac, Romochka’s heart hammering with excitement. He crouched, club extended. Grey Brother crouched too, ready to leap up or flatten his body, depending on what the cat chose to do. The dogs and Romochka generally chased cats on sight—exhilarated by the furry burst of speed as they fled, their fury and violence when cornered—but without real hope of catching one.